An App for That

Erik Hanson wrote a tweet (not sure that link will work) about an app for a tablet in which the camera is used to take pictures (video?) of passersby, who are then inserted into some kind of first-person shooter game. Or at least, I think that's what was going on.

It poses an interesting problem for the law, I suppose. Here's another possibility along the same lines: an app called "Take a Picture, It'll Last Longer" that records video of people and later adds whatever erotic elements the user wants, if any (it would presumably take a lot of processing power to do something sophisticated, but a simple version would be to insert the person's face into a pre-existing porn video).

Of course, people are already free to do this within their heads - you can't go out in public without running the risk that someone will use a mental image of you as masturbation fodder (well, actually, I can go out in public without running that risk, but most people can't). And I suppose the same goes for pictures taken in public. But since the hypothetical app is explicitly designed to facilitate this behavior, I wonder if it crosses a legal or moral line. Particularly, I suppose, if the video is of a child - though remember, we're talking about innocuous video that is later remixed. Although, if you end up with something that resembles child porn, I think that is clearly illegal under existing law.

None of this will matter once the pangasm has arrived.